Reckless Review: THE AVENGERS (2012)

The Avengers is a very good film. If I had a rating system, I’d give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Yes, it is that good. If you haven’t seen it, go now…I’ll go with you. Seriously. I don’t know if the world can stand one more person waxing eloquent about this movie, but I’m going to go for it anyway. Some thoughts…

Clark Gregg is like a different person when he’s playing Agent Coulson. His whole face tightens up.

Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson; Clark Gregg as himself

I still say that if I was an actress, I would want Scarlett Johansson’s career…from child actress to indie darling to action movie star…this year it’s a big comic book franchise and a sci-fi picture, next year she’s in some indie directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. A versatile talent.

I don’t have anything snarky to say about Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow

Playing the villain is always more fun, and that’s exactly what Tom Hiddleston looks like he’s having throughout the film. His Loki is also more proof that it helps to get Genuine Thespians for these comic-book action blowout extravaganzas. There’s a lot of talent here, including a bunch of Oscar nominees and winners, and they can make even the most potentially ludicrous lines sound good.

I am Loki and I am here to mess you up…with my flawless diction

I’m throwing down the gauntlet…I’d put our Detroit shawarma (that is the correct spelling) up against any in the world. That’s right, the world.

I just can’t stay away from the topic of food

One of the themes in Joss Whedon’s work is the mismatched, bickering team that, through hardship, becomes a family, and the Avengers are a perfect example of this. Their bipolar bickering and eventual unity really reminded me of the crew from Firefly. And it is greatly to Whedon’s credit that in a 2-1/2 hour movie (as opposed to an entire season of a TV show), each major character is a three-dimensional person I cared about. The regular-person-ization starts right away with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) chatting with Coulson (he’s not just a suit, he has a girlfriend…she plays the cello!) and doesn’t end until after the credits (stay until they kick you out). Let’s put it this way, the unexpected (at least by me) death in Avengers affected me as much as the one in Captain America did.

One big happy? family

Captain America (Chris Evans) is my favorite Avenger. So sue me. If you’d been asleep for 70 years and woke up to find the world was completely changed, your girl was gone, and your favorite music/movies/food/cars/clothing had all been replaced by other stuff, you’d probably be pretty quiet too. Seriously…what do you think Captain America thinks of the sagging pants look?

You call that music?

I’ve only got two complaints overall about the film: With all the great lines Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) got, at times the film seemed like Iron Man 3. Not that RDJ doesn’t maximize them…I like him and the character…I guess I should have gotten a clue when I saw the poster. And second, the ending reminded me quite a bit of the ending of X Men: First Class. But these are minor complaints to me. Apparently there’s going to be 30 minutes of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray. That means there’s more awesomeness! I can’t wait to see.

Wahoo!! Glad you’re doing this post, Paula. I so agree w/ you about the death in this movie, I got quite emotional over that as you know I like the guy! But I was still more affected by the ending in First Class though, I was practically bawling over it.

Clark Gregg is so darn cute isn’t he? And yes he looks better as himself but his character is so darn sympathetic.

Ahah, that shawarma pic looks good! Makes me want to hunt down some shawarma places in my neck of the woods 😀

It was a good movie but… I’ve just reached my limit of “Dark Lord/Evil Genius/Slimy Aliens who want to enslave the Earth” movies. The similarities are getting too obvious as moviemakers have simply run out of concept real estate. Case in point: The scene where Loki and the One Ring – I mean the Tesseract – instigate conflict among the heroes. Boromir – I mean Nick Fury – argues that Humanity needs to use the power of the Tesseract to defend itself. Captain America says the Tesseract should have been left at the bottom of Mount Doom – I mean the Atlantic. Come on Joss. Shot, counter-shot between Loki’s spear and the arguing heroes? Really? I’ve never seen that before… *cough* Fellowship of the Rings *cough*

I really shouldn’t hate on Whedon. It’s a Hollywood problem. Let me offer an alternative plot that I think would have worked very well, courtesy of X-Men/Alpha Flight: The Gift written by Chris Claremont. In this comic mini-series from 1986, Loki is the villain bent on world domination, but instead of teaming up with some aliens and using force to conquer Earth, he offers to give humans super powers if they follow him. However, since Loki is the trickster god, those who accept his offer lose all their creativity and imagination. And all the magic is sucked out of the world. The conflict involves some good old-fashioned physical fighting, but it is primarily a mental/spiritual conflict. What price would you be willing to pay to have power? Ok, maybe this wouldn’t be as much fun as seeing Manhattan being destroyed yet again. But at least it would be a different movie.

On the other hand, maybe if Captain America (the coolest hero ever) had all the good lines instead of that punk Tony Stark, I’d been writing about how The Avengers was The Best Movie Ever 🙂